Page 8 of The Warrior Priest (After the Rift #1)

W hen I first settled into my disguise as a boy, I’d been surprised at how easy it was to move about the city.

As long as I didn’t attract attention through thieving, no one took much notice of me.

Heads never turned as I passed. Gazes didn’t fall to my chest when I spoke.

Nobody whispered to their companion about my outfit or the way I’d arranged my hair or my unladylike snort in response to a stupid comment.

Being male was liberating and eye-opening.

I could see the city as it was, not the way it was presented to me.

The ugly side had shocked me into hiding when I first escaped my uncle’s manor house.

I was terrified of the brawls that broke out between drunks, and of the half-naked women inviting me to touch them.

But slowly I began to see that even the ugliest parts of Tilting could be interesting.

The prostitutes helped one another. Some drunks were surprisingly good company.

As they got to know me, they shared their stories with me, and their laughter.

Some fed or clothed me, if they had anything to spare, and some protected me.

I’d made friends, of sorts, and it was one of those friends that I visited now.

I caught her on a bad day, however.

“They took her!” Minnow cried. “They swept her and the other women up like they were the dung left behind by their horses.” Hands on hips, she paced the small kitchen of the tenement she shared with her partner, a prostitute who worked the area in which the Cat and Mouse tavern was located.

“I have a mind to march down to the prison cells and…” She picked up a pot lid and threw it at the wall with surprising vigor for such a thin woman.

The lid fell to the floor with a clatter.

Minnow picked it up and pointed to a small chip. “Now look what they made me do!”

I’d never seen Minnow so upset. Her partner had a reputation as the fiery one.

It was why she was such a popular prostitute with a regular clientele.

Minnow had always been rather meek and sweet.

In the year of my homelessness, she’d invite me inside on cold, rainy nights and feed me soup.

She soon guessed that I wasn’t a boy, but had kept my secret to herself.

After Rhys’s payments meant I could afford my own place, she sat me down and gave me sensible advice about keeping a man content while saving money on the side to one day gain my independence.

After I explained that I wasn’t being kept by a man for sexual favors, she’d been so relieved that she told me she had no idea what she was talking about anyway since she only knew how to keep another woman happy, not a man. We’d been friends ever since.

Aged about thirty, Minnow was striking if not beautiful with her square jaw and beaky nose. She kept house for her partner and the two lived quite contentedly on the proceeds of prostitution. They took care of young girls new to the profession and provided food and lodging for women in difficulty.

“Who took them?” I asked her. “The constables?”

She nodded as she set the lid back on the pot.

Usually something bubbled away in one of Minnow’s pots on the fireplace, but not today.

She placed her face in her hands before gathering herself and sitting on a chair across the table from me.

“The constables rounded them all up, every last one. If they were met with resistance, they used violence.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fined and released like every other time.”

That was what always happened when the constables conducted a raid.

This part of Tilting was notorious for prostitution.

Men from all classes knew they could find a woman to suit their needs here.

While Tilting’s self-proclaimed upstanding residents either pretended the industry didn’t exist or turned their faces away, the authorities tolerated the business as long as it didn’t spill out to other parts of the city.

The women were allowed to operate as long as they were discreet.

“This feels different,” Minnow told me. “The women did nothing wrong, Jac. They were working their own patches, minding their own business. There have been no complaints as far as I’m aware.”

“Have they been formally charged?”

“No. And if they don’t charge them they can’t fine them and release them.”

“It’s still early,” I assured her.

She chewed her thumbnail. “Jac, I’m worried. Why did he have them removed?”

“He?”

“The governor. He’s behind this. He must be.”

I tried to think why Uncle Roderic would round up the city’s prostitutes and imprison them without charge, but couldn’t. The women provided a service. In this area, they were peaceful, unlike in Merdu’s Pit where violence and crime were a disease that infected its desperate inhabitants.

Minnow got up and paced again. “It’s because he’s a sexless prude.”

I stared at her. “Is he?”

“He doesn’t have a wife or mistress, and he doesn’t come here to use any of the women.

He’s not interested in men, either. I asked around after I met him.

Folk who don’t enjoy the pleasures of the flesh are always the worst, thinking those who do enjoy it are abominations.

Some try to force their prudishness onto others. That’s what I think he’s doing now.”

“When did you meet him?”

“A few years ago when he was searching for his niece. He personally came to the brothels around here, thinking one of us captured her and forced her into prostitution, or some nonsense.” She was busy pacing and didn’t look at me.

She had no idea I was the niece in question.

“Thank Hailia her body was found in that fire or he might have ripped these streets apart looking for her.”

If the recent roundup of prostitutes had happened after my uncle saw me in the square, I would have worried there was a connection between the two incidents, and that perhaps he was hoping to flush me out, thinking I lived among the women.

But according to Minnow, the women were arrested last night and he’d seen me just this morning. Their arrest wasn’t my fault.

Minnow finally came to a stop in front of the fireplace.

“I hope it is his overzealous prudery behind the arrests. The governor might be sexless but the men on his council aren’t.

I can name six who regularly partake of the services offered by the girls, and another three who are occasional clients.

When they’re made aware of the arrests, they’ll vote to release them.

The governor can’t overrule them if they’re the majority. ”

Even if I could tell her about the document I’d seen in my uncle’s office, granting him power to bypass his council altogether, I wouldn’t. Minnow needed hope, and knowing such a document existed would strip it away.

For the first time since my arrival, she looked at me properly. “Are you well, Jac? You’re still thin. I have some bread, although it’s a little stale. I haven’t been to the market yet.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“So, what do you want?”

“Information. Do you know a woman named Giselle? She used to frequent the Cat and Mouse.”

“Giselle? What do you want with her?”

“So you do know her?”

“As well as anyone could. She was mysterious, coming and going as she pleased. She belonged to no man.”

That in itself was intriguing. How many women in Tilting could claim such freedom? “Was she nice?”

Minnow shrugged. “She was smart and witty, and quite the beauty. Generous with her money, too, although I can’t say where it came from. Men adored her, and women admired her.”

I sat back heavily in the chair with a sigh. “She sounds perfect.”

Minnow chuckled. “Nobody’s perfect, Jac. In Giselle’s case, it was her elusiveness that made her intriguing. Why are you asking about her?”

“Is she back in Tilting?”

“I haven’t heard, but I don’t go to the Cat and Mouse much these days. Why do you want to know?”

I tilted my head to the side and arched my brows.

“All right, all right, I won’t pry.”

I sat forward. “You said you can’t say where she got her money from. Does that mean you know and won’t tell?”

She removed an onion from a sack and a knife from a wooden box full of utensils. “It means I can’t say. I can only tell you she wasn’t a whore.”

“A seamstress?”

Minnow laughed. “Not her. If you’re looking for her, you’d do best to ask around at the Cat and Mouse.

If she’s not there, you could follow her lover.

He might lead you to her, if they’re still together.

He’s a priest in Merdu’s Guards.” When I didn’t respond, she added, “We shouldn’t expect men as masculine as that to be celibate.

It’s unnatural. Some keep mistresses, but not whores, mind.

They don’t need to pay when women throw themselves at them. ”

“Are you certain Giselle’s lover is a priest in Merdu’s Guards?” Perhaps the high priest had been wrong.

“He was. I saw them together at the Cat and Mouse. Not the one with the good hair who all the girls pine for—Andreas I think his name is. It was one of his friends, a Glancian man with an easy, friendly nature. Always smiling and laughing, he was.” She smiled to herself, remembering. “That was some time ago, though.”

It was Rhys, without a doubt. Of Andreas’s good friends, Vizah wasn’t full-Glancian and Rufus didn’t laugh.

I thanked Minnow and headed to the Cat and Mouse.

Nobody paid me any attention as I sat in a corner of the tavern by the fire, hunched over like a lad asleep in the warmth.

Through my lashes, I observed the patrons and listened to their conversations.

They were all men, and most talked about the arrest of the whores.

Some mentioned the governor’s latest efforts to rid the city of thieves, or their concern for the kingdom’s future without an heir, but others were in good spirits thanks to the free-flowing ale.